posted
If this were the real world, I would agree. I mean for what's essentially a flying lorry it as all the usual Starfleet kit, shuttle bay, transporters, phasers and work bees aplenty. However this is not the real world, it's Star Trek and in Star Trek ships as small as a runabout have proportionally the same kit as a starship, even torpedoes (which, I might add the Deneva doesn't have.)
Having said that of course I didn't design this as a pure bred cargo hauler, like say Bernd's Java Class. I designed it to be a long range, resupply ship with an eye to some of them being outfitted as mid range surveyors and transports. Think of them as the workhorses of the early 24th century colonial efforts, flying in convoys to support the bigger ships, landing to help establish the first beachhead colonies then later becoming the colonies own transport/freighter fleet.
This comes from the mandate that of the two Denevas we know about, the Arcos was a two man Starfleet freighter that operated near Turkana IV (a failed colony) and the LaSalle which reported an anomaly. Of course reporting an anomaly doesn't make it a surveyor, but I can't see a "flying box" freighter being named for a 17th-century French explorer.
As for the modular nature, I think making the cargo handling section detachable takes the concept a step too far. It already has a detachable command section, aft impulse block and of course the modular cargo pods.
Remember that although it's a small ship with a small crew, all those aux vehicles are mostly for the loading and unloading people at the other end, plus a spare or two. Remember the Discovery from 2001 had 3 pods for a two man crew. As for the escape pods, I had originally intended for them to be docked to the outside of the hull (like the narcissus shuttle on the nostromo) but couldn't come up with a design that looked good so I opted to sit them in the shuttle bay as they are clearly not meant to fit inside dedicated launch bays liek the ASRVs.
You are right though, the NCC-6200 as shown is in the baseline configuration. In practice it can hold up to nine sets of cargo pods, with special spacer modules with extra landing gear every three sets or so.
posted
I dont like the thought of a modular cargo handling section either, it would be a step too far. However I think there would be enough commonality of parts and engines that a fully enclosed version could easily be built, one that didn't carry those modules but was a complete, one-piece starship with good hold-space rather than modules.
By the way, the Discovery had a crew of 5. Three scientists were in hibernation as they weren't needed for the long trip to Saturn, just the two astronauts looking after the ship were active.
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posted
Would those scientists ever have had a need for the extra pods, though? (And which parts of the Discovery were designed for the supposed original mission, which ones added for the TMA-2 rendezvous? What was the original crew complement supposed to be? Even 2010 or the novelizations don't dwell much on this.)
Yes, I think that even if there was "modularity" in choosing the midhull configuration, it would be a factory option, not something that could be altered afterwards. But up to nine container sections? Good for outer space, but landing that thing would be awkward to the extreme. Not the least in terms of the patch of flat ground that would be needed as the landing area...
Incidentally, with just one or two container sections, this Deneva would look quite a lot like the "Merchantman" at a distance - which would be nice if we ever got a HDTV version of the visual effects that showed that this was used for the nondescript blip that precedes the explosion. But perhaps you had this in mind already?
As regards the auxiliaries, I think it would be nice to have a bit more commonality, when the lifepod design indeed can serve in multiple roles elsewhere in Trek. Replacing the travel pod (what are those good for anyway?) with one of these would go a long way.
posted
I don't think it'd be particularly smart to have you lifeboats in constant use and exposed to wear and tear. I'd rather have them safe and sound and largely untouched in the shuttle bay and subject to regular safety inspections. Having the travel pod there was just an idea I had to make the ship visually interesting. It would also give the aft section - from which most of the docking and cargo operations are managed and which would double as Aux control - a degree on independence. For example, during a busy cargo operation, if someone in the aft section needs to disembark, it would be more practical for them to take the pod from the aft airlock than to traipse through to the shuttle bay or take the transporter (the transporter requiring another person to run it.) The pod would also be useful if they need to make an exterior inspection of the hull in deep space (like the inspection pods the NX-01 carried). While a Work bee could certainly do it, they're a little cramped and can only hold one person, so a pod is better. There's also the possibility that the walkways between the fore and aft section become impassable due to an accident/leak/hull breach/whatever. Remember that this is from a time before site-to-site transports were common place and there was still much more reliance on physical transportation.
As for the size/landing issues, nine modules is the MAXIMUM, but by no means common or even optimum configuration. You're right, landing a ship of that length in a 1G atmospheric environment would certainly be challenging, though with anti-grav thrusters and a robust SIF generators by no means impossible. Landing sites would have to be carefully chosen; an old seabed like the Arizona salt flats or the arid plateaus in Peru should suffice. Of course a 0.1G, class-D planetoid shouldn't pose any problem at all, nor should a station like Starbase 74.
quote:However I think there would be enough commonality of parts and engines that a fully enclosed version could easily be built, one that didn't carry those modules but was a complete, one-piece starship with good hold-space rather than modules.
I'm not opposed to that, though the idea of modules is to allow for greater versatility in the types of cargo it can carry. An empty cargo bay is great for storing boxes of self sealing stem bolts, spare tricorders and jars of Ne'sKaf'ehh brand instant Raktajino, but if you need to transport Quadrotriticale in bulk, a bulk storage silo would be more useful. Likewise if you needed to transport liqids, compressed gases or the like, a dedicated and specially designed pod is more efficient than stacking up a bunch of smaller canisters and barrels.
quote:Incidentally, with just one or two container sections, this Deneva would look quite a lot like the "Merchantman" at a distance - which would be nice if we ever got a HDTV version of the visual effects that showed that this was used for the nondescript blip that precedes the explosion. But perhaps you had this in mind already?
As I recall from the screen caps there were 2 candidates for what they actually used. One was the old Merchantman, the other was the Lysian sentry pod. As you say, it is passably of a similar shape to the merchantman and as for the other design, I ahve planned for that too. I you look at the dorsal view there are a set of 3 comb like hingey looking details. These are hatches that cover some very hefty docking latches, to which can be attached a heavy duty harness which enables the ship to support a very large pair of cargo containers (or a size that I think Kenny would approve) that are proportionally equivalent to the engine pods on that generic miniature. I've just never gotten around to designing it, though the intention has always been there.
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